HAIKU WORD
What is the WORD on haiku? What should it be outside Japan? Season words? 5-7-5 syllables? Free verse? How about punctuation? There isn’t any in Japanese haiku – but there are kireji (‘cutting words’), which only really translate as punctuation marks – that means there’s more than 17 syllables if you insist on 5-7-5 and use punctuation. And Japanese sounds (on) don’t always work like English syllables, so your 5-7-5 insistence seems futile. In any case, Japanese poets like Santoka, Hekigoto and Seisensui were writing free-form haiku in the early twentieth century. And what about haikai no renga (linked verse), haibun (haiku and prose) and tanka (formerly waka)?
These were the questions and debates that simmered and sometimes raged within the pages of Blithe Spirit when I first became a member of the British Haiku Society (BHS) in 1997 and started to write half-decent poems. At that time I was working as a self-employed dry stone waller, as well as doing other manual jobs. I spent my work hours trying to notice haiku moments, which I would write up in the evenings. Submissions to Blithe Spirit (the quarterly journal of the BHS) were tapped out on my old typewriter, which made me feel like Jack Kerouac, albeit not as drunk or beat – yet, in my own way, trying to be a ‘Manx Dharma Bum’. The editor of Blithe Spirit – Caroline Gourlay – was very supportive of my work and started to publish my poems. Her words in an editorial still resonate, in terms of what haiku should or should not be outside Japan: “…the controversy that it arouses is a measure of the depth at which it engages us.”¹
The BHS debates revealed an art form of tremendous vitality, continually finding new ways of expression outside its native land. Below are some of my poems and adventures from 1997-1998: a time of ups, downs and in-betweens, as I explored and developed my own vision of haiku.
Dry Stone Walling in Sulby Valley (Autumn 1996 – Spring 1997)
Dig out a foundation, hit water, drive in stones on edge, then build –
Wet feet, cold hands, cut fingers – split slates –
Paint your hammer handles and chisels, so you don’t build them into the wall –
Steep valley sides, three hours of sun at midwinter –
Tree planting in Spring, white horse ascending the zigzag path.
After learning dry stone walling for six months, I am on my own. My first job is for ‘Mill’, who has purchased part of Slieau Managh (Monks’ Mountain’) and is planting trees there. My friends Dave (Mill’s son), ‘Pastie’ and Thurston do much of the planting. One day, as I am building, Dave and horseman Simon Buttimore are transporting tree planting materials up one of the old zigzag paths on the hillside. Simon’s horse Tom is all white, so is dazzling in the sun. I wonder when a horse last worked upon these ancient tracks in the valley?
8 Feb ’97: Read out a poem called ‘Beyond’ at the launch of artist Peter Thorn’s Different Moods exhibition at the Courtyard Gallery, St John’s.
31 Mar ‘97: Start my second dry stone walling job: repairing a garden wall for ‘Bonking Bob’, a TT rider who lives in Sulby.
11 May ‘97: Old May Day Eve Poetry and Pints at The Stanley pub in Ramsey. I read out some Zen poems by Shinkichi Takahashi and meet ‘Bill the Poet’ for the first time.
8 Jun ’97 stopped in my tracks / by hawthorn blossoms – / dog waits
Walking Bonnie (border collie) at home. Published in Blithe Spirit Vol. 7, No. 3 (Aug ‘97).
19 Sep ‘97 ravens calling – / the distant echo / of my shovel
Patching a fallen section of ‘wet’ stone wall at Ballagawne in Kirk Michael. I also write a longer poem called ‘Wall’, which is accepted for publication in Blade magazine. This is edited by Jane Holland, whose poetry workshops I have been attending in Douglas. Jane is often frustrated by my efforts to write longer poems and absolutely hates haiku! I have yet to learn the art of incorporating shasei (‘sketching from life’) more effectively into longer poems.
26 Jan ‘98 barbed wire / above the coal yard wall / blackbirds in a tree
Stone walling on your own is hard and lonely work. I have ended up doing other labouring jobs, where I enjoy the company of others. It is the busy winter period at the coal yard where my Dad and Grandad both work. I have been brought in to help Grandad Fred, who is the yardman. This moment happened while we were bagging hundredweights of coal: he filled the bags with the machine, before I whisked them away with a sack truck and rowed them up along the yard wall. As I waited with the truck, I looked up…
2 Feb ’98: Extremely positive feedback from Caroline Gourlay and more poems accepted for Blithe Spirit. At 6.20pm I see some very strange lights in the night sky to the south, which must be either UFOs or a military mid-air re-fuelling exercise?
2 Mar ‘98 stone carvings / ornate the cathedral – / the old gardener smiles
‘On the Road’ with Pastie, first to see our friend Chris, who is studying in Aberystwyth. The weather suddenly turns snowy after three enjoyable days drinking Welsh beer, so we head north. I go to visit family in Chester, where I walk around the famous city walls and experience this nice moment, looking down from the wall walk. Published in Blithe Spirit Vol. 8, No. 4 (Dec ‘98).
9-11 Jun ’98: Building a stone fireplace in the coal yard office. But I build the lintel too high – have to put a lower one in on edge later, which works well (using its angle to help it draw, like how they used to in old houses).
1 Aug ’98: Simon’s Holistic Retreat in Sulby. On the way, I meet a guy in a suit. He is lost and looking for the retreat. Turns out he is Michael Kewley – Dhammachariya Paññadipa – who is teaching there. A Manx dhamma master! Theravada trained. I have met my teacher. We walk down the track to the retreat together. I am taking down some bits of oak in an old wheelbarrow, for the woodcarving class Simon is running. Its wheel squeaks all the way down the track, as we walk and chat.
meet a dhamma master - / the squeaky wheel / of my barrow
12 Aug ’98: A slab of 24 green tea cans arrive in the post from Japan! Everything on them is in Japanese, apart from my blackbirds poem – which is on the side of each one…
19 Aug ’98: A book of collected haiku by Seishi Yamaguchi and a letter of explanation arrive in the post… My entry in the international section of the 9th ITOEN ‘Oh-i, Ocha’ New Haiku Contest has won, the prize for which also includes 200,000 yen (nearly £900)! Dave, Chris and Pastie tell me I’m ‘Big in Japan’ (a song I’m not familiar with).
9 Sep ’98: My poem in a frame arrives in the post – calligraphy – written by someone at the prize ceremony in Japan.
23 Dec ’98: Dave dies in Bogata, Columbia, aged 23 years. We find out on Xmas Eve.
25 Dec ’98 purple haze / of bare elm trees – / the rushing stream
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1 Caroline Gourlay, ‘Editorial’, Blithe Spirit: Journal of the British Haiku Society Vol. 9, No. 1 (March 1999), p. 4.